The present invention relates to a process for making a reconstituted tobacco sheet and more particularly to a process for making a bandcast reconstituted tobacco sheet having burley, flue-cured, oriental, Maryland, rare and exotic tobaccos, and combinations thereof, contained in a gel matrix within the reconstituted tobacco sheet. Even more particularly, the tobacco sheets having burley, as well as flue-cured, oriental, Maryland, rare and exotic tobaccos, and combinations thereof, are slit into split inner wrap strips which are positioned within the tobacco rod's wrapper. Exotic tobaccos include, but are not limited to, Izmar, Sumsun, Yaka, Latakia, Perique, Cavendish, Rustica, Fire-cure, and Dark or Sun-cure.
In the manufacturing of smoking articles and particularly cigarettes, it is common to use in the tobacco strip blend a percentage of strips of reconstituted tobacco. The reconstituted tobacco is generally prepared from tobacco fines, veins, stems and other waste tobacco products which are further processed and formed into sheets, cut into strips and blended in with fresh cut tobacco. The amount of reconstituted tobacco used in a tobacco blend for a smoking article varies, but is generally less than 20%. Usually these reconstituted tobacco sheets are absent of additional flavoring compounds as it has been found that the flavoring compounds, such as menthol, evaporate or dissipate rapidly from the sheet prior to blending with other tobacco and therefore provide little to no additional flavoring benefit to the tobacco blend.
Additionally, there has been great concern for the reduction of the ignition propensity of smoking articles as there have been a substantial number of fires which have been attributed to burning cigarettes coming into contact with combustible or flammable materials. Therefore, there is a considerable effort being expended in the industry to provide smoking articles which provide a low ignition propensity smoking article. Many of these proposals include a modification of the wrapper for the smoking article. Particularly, coatings or additives have been made to wrappers for the smoking articles to reduce the porosity or to change the chemical properties of the wrapper.